Life's no fun without a good scare

[thalassino]

It starts some time around 3am, Tuesday morning. Thin whispers of fog start appearing all throughout Vatheon, creeping through the narrow, winding streets, up the steps, and over the park. It starts in the lower district, but as the night progresses and daylight approaches, it spreads to the other districts as well, growing thicker and thicker as it does. By the morning rolls around, the mist is thick enough that visibility has been compromised greatly, and the temperature seems to have dropped a few degrees, an odd chill filling the air.

And on the walls, there are stains.

They are infrequent at first, just a odd ruddy brown smear and a oddly bright red drop here and there, but the closer to the Plaza, the more numerous they become. There is a large smear across the steps leading up to the Plaza, as if something big was dragged up them. In one place the blood -- for it is blood, there is no deny it at this point -- pools thickly as if whoever was responsible took a casual break there, leaving the poor victim to bleed out on the steps.

On the plaza, the mist is thinner, but that is no relief. Rather, it just functions to make the gruesome scene all the more clearer.

A woman is draped upside down on the coral. Or, well, woman. It was once a woman, certainly, but now it is nothing more than something straight out of a nightmare. The flesh seems to have been torn carelessly from her limbs here and there, showing the white gleam of her bones, her nurse outfit torn as if raked apart by giant claws and her head...

well, it isn't there anymore.

The ground in front of her is smeared with blood as well. But where the previous smears had been accidental, these are deliberate, long lines curving and meeting to spell out



hel pm e


But no help had been forthcoming, clearly. No, it seems that this murder, this brutal murder, was nothing more than a game to whoever did it. The walls of the buildings surrounding the plaza are coated in bloody, spelling out a long string of mocking 'HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA's and directly in the center, behind the coral.


Who is next?


The notice board seems to have been hit too. The killer did not tear down any of the notices on the board already, but they did cover the entire board with blood-stained sheets of paper, each adorned with the same text over and over and over again.


Chop chop, sweet Charlotte
Chop chop till she's dead
Chop chop, sweet Charlotte
Chop off her hand and head.


For those brave enough to check, no, the poor girl still has both her hands. Was the killer just sloppy, or does this mean this is not Charlotte? So many unanswered questions, more born every passing moment.

Who had done this? Why? Where they going to strike again? And why had nobody heard anything?





[ooc note: Consider this your mingle log. Have fun, go forth, threadjack.

And as a further note, the fog does not seem to be clearing up as the week goes on. ]

Comments

[wavesoakedlegs]

You are right... such ignorance is to be appreciated.

[He has to look away now, gaze sweeping over the rest of the scene instead. In all his life has never seen the like.]

This person remains in the city, looking for another victim. It cannot be allowed. But how can we even find them?

[Mitsuhide sighs. The raw shock makes it hard to think properly. All he can picture is what the poor woman must have gone through, imagine the sheer agony she must have felt.]

I am going to have to think on this properly later.

[unshelledbullet]

[Mitsuhide just echoes the thoughts running through Squall's head. Some insane sicko is on the loose, and as a leader of the Defense Force, he has to do something about it.

It was nice, those days when someone else made the decisions.]

I have to figure things out now.

[wavesoakedlegs]

I feel that will be no simple task...

[To put it mildly. What does one even do, to locate someone like this?]

To think that this person walks among us, cloaked in anonymity. Mmm... do you think of... of this will help to identify them? I am not expert in such things.

[unshelledbullet]

Neither am I. But right now, people need to be calmed. It does nobody any good if mass panic erupts.